Learners and teachers in family medicine providing insight on health care.

Why I’m Doing an Addiction Medicine Fellowship

*Note: This post was written in June 2019, just prior to Dr. Caspar’s graduation from the University of Utah.

As I prepare to graduate from the University of Utah Family Medicine Residency today, I am looking forward to my upcoming year completing an Addiction Medicine fellowship.

One of the things that most excites me about the upcoming year is integration. I like the idea of integrating comprehensive primary care into addiction medicine and psychiatric settings. I am similarly looking forward to integrating addiction medicine services in general primary care settings. Integrating addiction medicine and family medicine fits with my mission to promote the health of individuals and communities with an emphasis on under-served populations.

Family
medicine offers me the scope of practice to care for people in all stages of
life in low-resource settings, including pregnant women and adolescents. I look
forward to additional opportunities to leverage my expertise and privilege as
an addiction medicine physician to improve community health and advocate for
social justice issues such as criminal justice reform.

Another thing I look forward to is being a resource to other providers and helping residents to treat addiction, be it by formal consultation, curbside, or on-the-fly teaching when requested. I want to empower providers to treat their patients’ substance use disorder so that patients are empowered to live their best lives.

I’m looking forward to working with the amazing team of addiction medicine specialists operating here at the University of Utah, to whom I will look for guidance and support while I’m learning.

On to my next adventure!

Rachel Caspar, MD is a recent graduate of the University of Utah Family Medicine Residency, and is currently a fellow in Addiction Medicine at the University of Utah.